I was the advisor at UT for a Croatian PhD who approves of cavers --
Nikola Petkovic. I asked him, now a professor in Rijeka, to research
the question of "What really happened in Postojna Jama?" Below his
answer and email. Caving in the news . . . . feel free to use this
information with credit. might be a nice news bit in some
publication. He is not a geologist, so his surmise in the last
paragraph is probably wrong -- some underlying rock was probably
exposed and its surface damaged/sealed by the fire, but at least we
know where the limestone went. And Nikola is fully aware of using
irony in discussing Yugoslavian partisans. THAT BIT IS A JOKE,
people, what folks in 1944 would have thought in doing this.
Enjoy,
Katie Arens
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:01:21 +0100 (CET)
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Texascavers] POSTOJNA JAMA
From: [email protected]
To: "Katherine Arens" <[email protected]>
Dear Katie,
what I was able to find out so far is the following:
In WW II (1944) the German Army had fuel storage (gasoline) where today
the final tourist-train station is located (at the main exit out of
the cave). It
was a shitload of fuel, meant to provide for all their Northern Adriatic
troups, from Trieste to Rijeka. The reason for storing the fuel there, was
a security one--to secure the fuel from a possible (and by 1944 quite
likely to happen) air attack. The entrance to the storage was closely
watched by guards. However, The Vojko Brigade (Vojko is the name of the
Partisan commander-in-chief), driven by the ferocity of all historical
winners, managed to sneak into the cave (on April 23rd 1944) and blew the
fuel up. The Partisans used an old passage--not a natural one but a man
made that led from Crna jama (The Black Cave) to Postojnska jama (The
Postojna Cave). The underground passage was half way covered and therefore
invisible for the Germans. Since it was not completely opened, they
decided not to draw it onto their map.
I am aware that your main question was not about hows but whats, but my ex
Yugoslavian national pride won. I was not about to be silent about my Partisan
ancestors' heroism, wisdom, bravery, and explosive competence (in beating
up the already dead horse by mid 44, but Germans are Germans, regardless
how weak they might be)!
What it didi to the cave was the following: The fire that followed the
blast lasted for a week. The stalactites fell off (those that grew from the
top of the cave)and, after their detachment they covered the walls of the
cave. And that prevented the growth of new stalacites and stalagmites.
Therefore in that particular part of The Postojna Cave you can still see
the Black rocks--previously part of the Black Cave.
What I get from the explanation is that the explosion followed by fire,
aside from the described processes involving the stalactites and
stalagmites, sort of fused the two caves into one integral space.
I hope this helps.
nikola
--
************************
Katherine Arens (Professor) Office: EPS 3.128; Phone:
(512) 232-6363
Dept. of Germanic Studies Dept. Phone: (512)471-4123
1 University Station C3300 FAX (512) 471-4025
University of Texas at Austin Bldg.Location: E.P. Schoch 3.102
Austin, TX 78712-0304 [email protected]
-. .-
_..-'( )`-.._
./'. '||\\. (\_/) .//||` .`\.
./'.|'.'||||\\|.. )O O( ..|//||||`.`|.`\.
./'..|'.|| |||||\`````` '`"'` ''''''/||||| ||.`|..`\.
./'.||'.|||| ||||||||||||. .|||||||||||| ||||.`||.`\.
/'|||'.|||||| ||||||||||||{ }|||||||||||| ||||||.`|||`\
'.|||'.||||||| ||||||||||||{ }|||||||||||| |||||||.`|||.`
'.||| ||||||||| |/' ``\||`` ''||/'' `\| ||||||||| |||.`
|/' \./' `\./ \!|\ /|!/ \./' `\./ `\|
V V V }' `\ /' `{ V V V
` ` ` V ' ' '
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
